Ultra Somnium
by Mr. Penbrook
Summary: Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine must confront an incomprehensible nightmare that threatens to wipe out life on earth, as they face the ultimate test of their loyalty and partnership. Post-RE5, sequel to "No Cage Worse." Please read & review!
1. Prologue: Dreams

_Resident Evil: Ultra Somnium_

_Thanks to all those who submitted praise and feedback for my first story, Resident Evil: No Cage Worse. Ultra Somnium is a direct sequel to that story, continiung the journey of Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield as they try to find their way after the ordeal they endured in Africa, while confronting an unimaginable horror that threatens to wipe out life on earth. I published No Cage Worse all at once, but this time I'm going to be publishing a few chapters at a time, which I hope will compel me to keep going until it's finished :) Please read and review, and I hope you enjoy Resident Evil: Ultra Somnium_

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_Prologue: Dreams_

Its sleep was restless and eternal. As it slumbered for countless millions of years, hidden from the denizens of the world it once dominated, it dreamed. More correctly, it engaged in a process that cannot be comprehended by human minds, but for which the closest analog is dreaming. How better to describe it? It experienced simulated sensory information that changed over time. But the result of this process could not be interpreted as a surreal narrative, as when we dream. It was something very different, something much more complex. It was analyzing. Planning. Predicting. Evolving.

Most importantly, it was storing up its intentions as it conceived of them.

Then one day, the reality of its existence changed. It had always known this would happen. It had even known when it would happen, and what would come after. You see, it has never, does not and will never experience time in a one-directional, linear fashion, the way sentient mammals do. If your brain could send signals back and forth between different points in your lifespan, you might experience a crude approximation of its existence, at least for the brief moment before you were driven irreparably insane, simultaneously, at every moment of your entire life.

It is not an easy thing for minds such as ours to understand.

Would anyone describe it as alive? Human science can barely conceive of a definition for life as we ourselves experience it. It had many processes that, if we could comprehend them, we would find analogous to the processes of life. The taking in of sustenance, to be converted to matter and energy. The expulsion of waste. Reproduction. Decision-making.

Predation.

But these are crude conceptions of what its processes actually were. Could you really describe something as "eating and drinking gravity?" Or "reproducing by tunneling filaments of infinite thinness through multiple dimensions back into ours?" Or "eliminating waste by erasing electro-magnetic radiation from the universe?" Or "engaging in meaningful cognition through the systematic rearrangement of matter at the atomic level?"

No. Not easy to understand.

But the crude, pink monkeys that had sprouted up in a blink of its eternal eye never wait to understand before they start to tinker. If it had a process analogous to human thought, it might think that was our most dangerous quality, at least to ourselves. If it had processes analogous to humor and sound, it might actually laugh at us.

But, whether it could communicate or not, it kept quiet. And so it was tinkered with. And, in a manner undetectable by the rubbery apes that poked at it, sliced it, weighed it, burned it, froze it, and stored it, it began its version of the life cycle anew. Eat. Eliminate. Reproduce. Think.

Hunt.


	2. Chapter 1: Faster

_Chapter 1: Faster_

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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

JUNE 8, 2009

1705 HOURS

* * *

As Jill Valentine's feet punished the whizzing treadmill in the exercise room of Chris Redfield's apartment complex, she thought about Habanero peppers.

She'd been 15 when she first experienced the deadly Habanero, playing "Truth or Dare" with her best friend, Gregory, in his kitchen, his parents out for a night on the town. Jill and Gregory had never crossed that boundary into anything more than friends, but she'd thought the whole point of "Truth or Dare" was to skirt the line and get a little naughty. Gregory's dare, though, wasn't quite of the saucy, flirty variety she'd been hoping for.

"I dare you to take a bite of a Habanero pepper, chew it and swallow it."

She'd quizzically arched an eyebrow when he said it. Hopefully he was starting out with tame dares and later would get to "the good stuff." In any case, he wasted no time retrieving a small orange pepper from the vegetable bin of his refrigerator.

Jill really didn't know much about food or vegetables. The little thing looked harmless. She'd always eat the little Jalapeno slices Gregory picked off of his nachos, savoring the sting and the heat, so she thought she had a pretty decent tolerance for that particular kind of pain.

Until she took that bite and chewed, she'd had no idea just what "hot" meant. Or "pain," for that matter.

What Gregory had failed to tell her was that a Habanero pepper is one of the hottest foods known to man, something like sixty times hotter than a Jalapeno.

At first, he just laughed. Her eyes went wide as saucers as tears streamed down her beet red face, veins popping from her forehead, squeals of agony escaping her tortured throat. His laughter started to fade as her squeals turned to something more like choking. "Oh shit, Jill, are you all right?"

She was near convulsions as she slapped and hit him. This was the worst agony she had ever endured. She could feel the exact location of the chewed pepper pulp traveling down her esophagus, as though she'd swallowed a hot coal. He got her water. Water didn't do a thing.

"Uh… bread! Bread is supposed to help! It, like, absorbs the oil!"

Gregory got a loaf of the spongy white stuff as Jill tried hanging her head down and controlling her breathing. She didn't bother to untwist the tie on the loaf, tearing into the plastic and shoving the bread into her mouth in handfuls. It helped a little. But right then, "a little" was very little.

Eventually they switched to a bowl of ice cubes. He helped her lie down on the couch, where she sucked on the ice, her eyes closed, trying to tune out the screaming agony. The pain was starting to ebb in her mouth, but her stomach felt like it was turning itself inside out, and every breath was like running sandpaper along her windpipe.

Gregory sat at her side the whole time, apologizing over and over again, asking what else he could do. She just shook her head at everything he suggested.

It took about an hour for Jill to be able to speak. Finally, she was able to muster a very hoarse sentence.

"Gregory. I am going to kill you in your sleep."

The peculiar thing about the whole incident, though, was what happened after. From that day forward, every Jalapeno slice she ate barely registered on the heat meter. She could eat all kinds of things she couldn't have handled before – vindaloo curry, maki rolls dipped in soy sauce mixed with huge globs of wasabi, five-alarm chili, tom yum soup. Didn't matter what she ate, didn't matter how hot. That one incident with the Habanero had, it seemed, permanently ratcheted up her tolerance of spicy food to levels that could probably win her contests.

Jill thought about this as she pounded the treadmill at her feet, savoring the burning in her legs, the throbbing in her joints, the tearing of muscle to build itself up anew, as she had once savored those now-pointless Jalapeno slices. She'd been running at nearly her fastest speed for twenty solid minutes; three years ago, five minutes of sprinting at this pace would have been the maximum she could manage, which is about what you could expect of a top athlete as well. She realized that, since the horrors she had experienced at the Tricell facility, being mutilated and operated on by Albert Wesker, her overall tolerance for pain had gone through the roof. She wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, it could one day help her endure an unimaginable situation; on the other, pain is a pretty important feedback mechanism. People that don't feel pain usually don't live very long.

Her abused legs should be killing her right about now; offhandedly, Jill wondered what kind of damage she was doing to herself. Her heart was pounding so fast she could barely feel the individual beats; she checked the treadmill's readout too see that the monitor on her hand was telling the machine her heart rate was around 220 bpm. Probably too high.

So why was she doing this to herself? After chugging three cans of nasty, highly caffeinated energy drink that had given her a piercing, but now tolerable, headache?

Even though she knew better, she chased out those thoughts and focused all her energy on running. _I wonder how much faster this thing can go?_ she thought as she cranked the level even more. Her mind became a blur of activity and motion. Conscious thought was suppressed, worry and fear driven away. _Must go faster. Must always go faster._

Chris's voice brought her focus crashing down around her. "Jill! What are you doing?"

The unfortunate effect of this interruption was a startled lurch on her part, which caused her to tumble backwards off the treadmill and crash into a weight-lifting bench behind her in a tangle of sweaty limbs and stringy hair.

"Oh shit," said Chris, rushing to her side. "Are you all right?"

She started to untangle and rubbed her head where she'd banged it on the bench's metal leg. "Yeah. I think so."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… I was just worried. You looked like you were about to have a stroke or something."

He helped her sit up, then get to her feet to sit on the bench and rub all the spots she'd just bruised.

"I'm fine, Chris," she said, an answer born of long, self-protective instinct.

"Jill, how long were you running like that? You should see yourself, you look like a veiny tomato."

She arched an eyebrow and glared at him. "Thanks a lot."

"I'm serious, Jill. You keep pushing yourself like this, pushing so hard. Talk to me!"

She wanted to shut down, pretend everything was fine. But that was the old Jill, the old habit. She knew now that was the worst thing she could do. So she just sighed and rested her sweaty head in her hands.

"Everything feels… dull and fuzzy all the time."

He started to get it. "The P30." The chemical agent that had granted Jill superhuman strength, agility and resilience had also overclocked her mind and expanded her senses. And rendered her a helpless slave to Albert Wesker, unable to resist following any order he gave her. Although Jill had been under the constant influence of the serum for nearly a year, she had been given a clean bill of health after Chris rescued her – but the serum was far from understood by BSAA scientists, and its long-term effects were impossible to gauge.

Jill had been gone from Chris's life for three years. The world thought her dead, although on some level Chris had never accepted that. On a hunch and a rumor, he went to Africa to look for her. She had been the captive of Wesker, their most hated enemy. Wesker had formulated a serum that turned Jill into his perfect super-soldier, that would allow him to compel her to do the most horrible things – kill, maim, infect, destroy. But Chris was the one who had rescued her from all that, defeating Wesker and helping Jill take her place again among the living.

It had been six months since their return from Africa. Jill had spent three of that in detention, awaiting charges of terrorism, of which she had been fully cleared. The three months after that, she had spent here, with Chris. He had BSAA desk work, and the occasional lecture or seminar, to keep him busy, but she still didn't quite know what she wanted to do. She had been offered immediate reinstatement as a BSAA field operative; she and Chris could take their places at each other's side again, doing the work for which they now knew they had been born. And Jill knew Chris wanted that more than anything, but bless him, he had brought it up once and never since.

But Jill wasn't ready. She had Chris's complete trust, she knew that; she just needed to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she could trust herself.

So, Jill trained. Exercise, running, martial arts classes, weapons proficiency testing. Long days spent at the library and on the internet, coming up to speed on the world's events, the many changes to catch up on from her three year absence. Jill felt it was a full-time job just becoming normal again, at least by her standards of normalcy.

And worse, her ability to judge those standards had been warped by the P30. Under the influence of the diabolical chemical, she had felt mental and physical capacity that she never could have imagined. She knew what it felt like to have unlimited potential. She knew what it felt like to be perfect. This unfortunatel knowledge had all but erased her notion of "good enough," and now she had to learn that from scratch.

As Jill spoke, cautiously but trying to be as open with Chris as she could, her tone was vaguely ashamed. "At first, after the P30 wore off, those days and weeks after you saved me, I loved going back to being regular Jill – to feeling pain, getting tired, thinking a normal jumble of thoughts.

"But it's hard, Chris. It's harder than I thought it would be. I mean, some days I feel like I'm underwater. The world seems murky. Everything runs together like a big blur. I struggle with the simplest things, you know? I stand there in the grocery store for five minutes trying to decide on which shampoo to buy."

Chris nodded. "So you try to get the blood pumping, the adrenaline going. The caffeine, the energy drinks. All just to get your brain working faster."

A tear rolled down her cheek. "I know, Chris. It makes me sick. But I want to feel that way again. Some days, it's all I think about."

Chris put his arm around her shoulder. "I wish I knew what you're going through."

She smiled wryly. "And I'm glad for your sake that you don't."

She put her head on his shoulder and let her mind wander. She thought again of her friend Gregory, the pepper torturer. Gregory had died at the age of 17, their senior year of high school. Inseperable for much of their adolescence, at some point she and Gregory had started to fall in with different crowds. Jill was drawn to ROTC; Gregory was drawn to drugs. Heroin, to be specific. It was never clear if the overdose that had killed him was an accident or not. Jill believed deep down that it was, if not out and out suicide, then at least an attempt at massive self-destruction. Gregory had always shown an obsessive side, pursuing whatever his current interest was with an almost alarming intensity, whether it was painting models, entering writing contests, or playing his guitar. But no matter what his achievement, he always seemed disappointed. He set an impossible standard for himself, then always failed to match it. Maybe even when it came to drugs. Jill always suspected that he just got tired of chasing a high he could never quite achieve.

Was this how it had been for Gregory? Did he feel like a stone sinking in water, ever further from the bright and clear surface of that first exquisite high? Would she follow him into a self-made trap? Would Chris find her in this smelly room one morning, collapsed in a heap, dead from a heart attack or a stroke as the ladies of "The View" chattered on in the background?

Chris knew when she needed him to be silent, but he could also tell when her thoughts were getting the better of her, and these days, that happened more often than ever. He broke her morbid trance. "We'll get through this, Valentine. We always have, and this is no different. You have my word."

His words were like medicine. Somehow, when he said something like that to her, it instantly registered to her as the absolute and inviolable truth. God, was she glad she was here with him. He had no idea how much he had helped her, how much he continued to help her. How much she needed him.

Jill wanted to be as honest with Chris as she could, but she didn't think they were ready for that level of openness. _Patience, Valentine_, she thought to herself, a smile creeping unbidden across her face. Since her rescue, Jill had learned a very important lesson: it was important to not obsess over what had come before or what was yet to come, but rather to savor the small joys of the moment. Like the feeling of Chris's strong arm wrapped around her shoulders, the sound of his heart beat as her head nestled into him. Jill didn't know what was in their future, only that their future was intertwined, that every day with Chris was better than the last, and that it had been so as long as she'd known him. Being with Chris was like holding a Christmas present in her lap; the promise and beautiful mystery it represented was as much a wonder as the eventual act of opening it. For Jill, there was no more delightfully exquisite agony than waiting, as long as it was for the right thing; few things made life more worth living and defending.

They lapsed into a more comfortable silence. She felt her heart rate decreasing, her ragged breathing returning to normal. With him there holding her, suddenly dull and fuzzy didn't seem quite so bad.

"See? You look better already," he finally said.

"No more veiny tomato?" she cracked.

"Well, not quite as veiny, and the tomato is less ripe, anyway."

She chuckled. The motion of her laughter made her aware of just how damp she'd gotten him with sweat. How was it she was always finding a way to ruin his shirts? He was so good about never seeming to notice, though the shirt always vanished at the first opportunity he got. She pictured him tossing a sack with the words "SHIRTS RUINED BY JILL" stenciled on it into a furnace.

He continued speaking. "So, I got a call from Captain Pyke. The BSAA wants me to conduct an inter-agency seminar on bio-terror readiness at Quantico."

Jill perked up instantly, glad that the subject of conversation was no longer her. "Really? Chris, that's fantastic!" The FBI's Virginia academy known as Quantico was a source of envy for law-enforcement professionals all over the world, especially those from overworked and underfunded agencies such as the BSAA.

He smiled. "I know, it's a good sign. I get the sense that, after Kijuju, there's a lot more conversation between the BSAA and US agencies. Feels like we're finally getting some traction in making the government face the B.O.W. situation. So, I leave tomorrow. Come with me!"

She looked uncertain. "Are you sure, Chris? You know you don't have to babysit me. No more danger zone workouts, I swear."

"I know. But I want you to come. I think it would do you good. Virginia is beautiful this time of year; you can hike and jog in the woods. Plus, the training facilities at Quantico are state-of-the-art. Not that you need training, of course," he was careful to add.

She smiled. "A little more training never hurt anyone. Are you sure I'd be welcome?"

"I already cleared it. They'll be happy to accommodate you, whatever you need. In fact, Pyke made it clear that he was hoping you could participate in the seminar, and I agree. You know, whatever you're comfortable with. These rooks are going to be green as hell, and anything you give them can only help them down the line."

She didn't need much convincing. As far back as STARS, the idea of green rooks always brought out both the nurturing mother and the drill sergeant in her. This was Chris's opportunity and there was no way she'd hog the spotlight, but she could definitely help him get his message out there.

Besides, even though he was circumspect and discreet about his feelings for her, she knew that, really, what it boiled down to was that he just didn't want to be apart from her. Not yet. And not due to some protective instinct, some desire to watch over her like a mother hen. No, Jill was no fool. It was obvious to Jill that he just felt more like himself when he was around her. She could recognize this as clearly as if he'd said it to her face. She knew it for what it was because she felt exactly the same about him. He had a way of chasing away all her doubt, her fears, her self-hatred for the horrendous acts her mind had not been able to stop her body from committing. It was still hard for Jill to be certain about anything after her ordeal, but she was certain of one thing: she would never get sick of being near Chris. There weren't enough hours in the day to spend with him. And though she didn't really understand why, she knew he felt the same about her.

She looked up at him. "Let's do it."

The discretion that Chris naturally practiced regarding his feelings for Jill was not in evidence as a puppy-dog smile lit up his face.


	3. Chapter 2: Not Ketchup

_Chapter 2: Not Ketchup_

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WASHINGTON, D.C.

JUNE 8, 2009

2130 HOURS

* * *

Joaquin DeSantos was lost in the happiest of thoughts when a peculiar bubbling sound started to pierce his awareness. Specifically, the thought was: _Baby names… I can't believe I'm thinking up baby names!_ Maria didn't want to find out in advance if it was a boy or a girl, so they agreed to come up with a list for both. It was shaping up to be one hell of a terrific year: he and his partners had been having much success at the auto shop they'd started, and now he was finally going to be a father, to give his parents their first grandchild.

He was so preoccupied that his train had come and gone without him noticing, but the bubbling sound seemed so wrong and so close that it started to nag at him. It was the smell of iron and ground beef, however, that really got his attention.

He'd been staring at his shoes, and as he snapped back into reality, he noticed they had a spatter of thick red fluid on them. _Some idiot was probably putting ketchup on his hot dog._

Joaquin looked to his right, towards the source of the sound. No, not ketchup.

He swore there had been someone standing next to him. He looked down. There had been. Only now she wasn't standing. Now she was a puddle.

A floral print dress lay in a heap next to a leather purse. He could even see what appeared to be a pacemaker right in the center of the dress. Viscous red fluid seeped everywhere out of the pile… so much fluid. So thick. Not blood. _More like a red milkshake._

Joaquin noticed what else was in the pile: bones. Looked to be all the bones that made up a human skeleton.

People all around Joaquin were screaming and running. Joaquin, though, just stood there, mesmerized by the sight. His brain was struggling to try and put it all together, figure out what exactly it was that had happened and was happening next to him.

But it wasn't that hard of a puzzle.

_Some woman was standing next to me, and now she has melted. Her flesh, her muscles, her organs have dissolved into a red liquid, leaving a pile of bones and clothing behind._

Satisfied that he had solved the puzzle, Joaquin leaned over and threw up. And then, screaming at the top of his lungs, he ran as fast as he could, not caring where he ended up, just as long as it was far, far away from here.


	4. Chapter 3: Greenhorns

_Chapter 3: Greenhorns_

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QUANTICO, VIRGINIA

JUNE 10, 2009

0900 HOURS

* * *

No matter how many seminars and talks Chris gave on behalf of the BSAA, he always felt just a little awkward at first. He wasn't a teacher by training, or a public speaker. He was better with a sniper rifle than a Powerpoint presentation, more at ease with a knife in his hand than a laser pointer. But somehow he managed to get through, and he knew this time would be no different as he looked over the five young, eager attendees patiently waiting for him to begin. It was a small group for him to have traveled so far, but in a way this seemed preferable to him: a more intimate and personal seminar would let him focus more attention on these people, hopefully turning them into passionate advocates for bio-terror readiness and the BSAA. A handful of committed evangelists would do more to advance the cause than a roomful of bored careerists.

"You'll do great!" Jill had enthused that morning as she fussed over him in their motel room, straightening his tie, patting down his suit jacket. He'd wanted her to be here with him, of course, but she begged off, promising to make an appearance in a few days. He couldn't blame her; the first thing he always wanted to do at Quantico was to hit Hogan's Alley for some urban combat role-playing, and he was sure that was where she was right now_. She deserves a little fun_, he thought. The idea of Jill actually enjoying herself made Chris smile.

_And these rookies deserve my full attention_, he said, resolving not to think about Jill for a little while.

"Okay, let's get started," Chris said, quieting the murmurs between the five freshly scrubbed greenhorns that he would be doing his best to acclimate to the horrors of modern day biological warfare. "My name is Chris Redfield. You can just call me Chris. I am a field operative with the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance. I presume you've all made yourselves familiar with my agency and the work they do as preparation for this seminar. What you're basically going to get is a crash course in the state of modern bio-organic weaponry, as well as the mindset of the forces that wish to employ such weapons. And I'm going to warn you, it's much worse than you think."

The already quiet room seemed to get quieter still with Chris's ominous pronouncement. Good. He had their attention.

"Now, I've been informed that the five of you represent various agencies and specialties. We're going to be spending a lot of time together over the next few weeks, so why don't you go one by one and introduce yourselves – your agency, your specialty, just the basics." With this, Chris gestured to his left for the group to proceed.

The first rookie spoke; he was a slender but fit Asian man. "My name is Kenshin Higuchi, and I've been a Special Agent with the FBI for two years. My specialty is field work, with an emphasis on weapons proficiency. I'm the one they call in if they're afraid things are going to get violent."

To Kenshin's left sat a slight red-headed woman with a round, freckled face. "Olivia Worth. I'm a biologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. My thesis was on theoretical biology; my interest is in anticipating and formulating response plans to potential biohazard threats that science hasn't quite brought about yet."

Chris took note of this information. This seminar was definitely for her.

The large, craggy-faced man with a crewcut that sat to Olivia's left spoke with a thick Russian accent. "I am Ilya Khovansky, special agent with the FSB." The FSB was the agency that replaced the KGB after the fall of the Soviet Union. "I am here as part of an exchange program between the US government and Russia. My specialty is terror response."

Ilya looked to his left at a pale blond man with thick glasses and a boyish compexision. "Jim Shaw. I'm an intelligence analyst for the NSA."

Finally, the unusually tall, athletic, Middle Eastern-looking woman on the far left of the group spoke. "My name is Patty Rasheed. I spent three years in the NYPD, and I am currently completing my training here with the hopes of becoming a Special Agent with the FBI. My specialty will not be decided until my training is complete, but I have a general interest in terrorism and feel that this specialty is how I could best serve the Bureau. I'm not exactly sure how I managed to get myself invited to this seminar, but I intend to make the most of this opportunity." Chris had read their jackets before the seminar; the reason she was here was that she was at the top of her class, with off-the-charts proficiency ratings. Chris was grateful for the opportunity to work with her at the start of her career, and hopefully put her on a trajectory where she could save countless lives.

Chris nodded. "Okay, very good. I'm glad to see that we have such a broad representation of agencies and interests. My goal is to impress upon you the very real dangers posed by cutting-edge bio-organic weaponry, in the hopes that each of you will be able to seed your prespective agencies with a fresh perspective on the subject. I believe that in the long run this is the best way to save lives and to keep people safe. Some of the things we will discuss may be difficult for you to understand or to believe, but everything I will tell you is the absolute truth. All I ask is that you keep an open mind and remember your training.

"Today, I'm going to give you a full account of my career, starting with an incident in the Arklay mountains and finishing with my most recent mission in the Kijuju region of Africa. I'll pause periodically for questions.

"Tomorrow, I'm going to ask you to come prepared for an extended field exercise. We're going to be out in the woods for more than 24 hours. I know that some of you have more desk time than field time, but if you're going to be dealing with active bio-terror operations, you may find yourselves pushed to the limit, and this is the best way for me to gauge your readiness.

"Does anyone have any questions before I begin?"

The group shook their heads respectfully. They were here to listen. Good.

"Okay. My experience with bio-terror began in 1998. I was an officer in a local emergency response unit called STARS, along with my partner, Jill Valentine. Jill is in Virginia with me, and at some point over the course of this seminar, you will get to meet her. She's the best agent I've ever worked with, so I encourage you to be ready to make the best use of her time that you can.

"So, there were two STARS teams, Alpha and Bravo. Both teams were called in to respond to an incident at a mansion…"


	5. Chapter 4: No Reason To Panic

_Author's note: If you have been following Ultra Somnium, this chapter used to be chapter 5, but I felt the flow of the story works better changing this to chapter 4 and altering a few details. _

* * *

_Chapter 4: No Reason To Panic_

* * *

MONTCLAIR, VIRGINIA

JUNE 11, 2009

1625 HOURS

* * *

Jill wearily entered the motel room she was sharing with Chris. She was thoroughly exhausted and starting to enjoy the feeling again. She'd been to Hogan's Alley before, but the simulation of urban combat was far more realistic than it had been years ago; the paint ball bruises blooming all over her body would attest to that. The role-play shootout had been quite a spectacle, and it was nice to test her field abilities with nothing on the line for a change. The life-sized computer-generated simulation, complete with light guns that actually had a kick due to force feedback, had been just plain fun.

_Better funding, cooler toys_, thought Jill as she splashed her face with water. She leaned back a bit and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was coming in brown, the blonde growing out, giving her a bit of an odd look, but she couldn't quite bring herself to dye her hair back to her old color. She liked watching it slowly come in, back to the color she'd always had. But what she was really focusing on was the face surrounded by the two-tone hair. It wasn't a face that belonged to someone whose burden was unbearable. The smiles were coming easier and more frequently these days. A good sign.

She left the bathroom to turn on the TV and grab her shower bag. Returning to the bathroom, the words of the newscaster caught her attention; abandoning her shower for the moment, she sat on the edge of the bed to hear more.

"… fifth such death this week alone. Eye witnesses stated that the victims seemed to, in their words, 'melt.' Let me warn you that the account you are about to hear is very graphic, and may not be appropriate for sensitive viewers."

The video feed switched to an on-the-street interview of a middle-aged woman in front of ambulances and fire trucks.

"I never seen anything like it. He, he grabs at his face and his throat, and starts to sink down, you know? But he didn't bend his knees. I mean, it was just like he was a big red candle melting inside his clothes. This red stuff poured out as his clothes just fell into a pile. Bones were poking out. It was unbelievable!."

"Authorities still decline to comment on the situation. We… all right, I'm being told we have Andrew Luntz, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Virginia in the studio. Good evening, Professor Luntz. Based on the reports we've gotten so far, what can you tell us about the cause of these unusual deaths?"

The camera cut to a sallow, dark-skinned, balding man with a beard and oversized glasses perched on an oversized nose.

"Kurt, before I start, let me just say that this is pure speculation. I do not have any information that the public does not have. Okay, the liquefication of human tissue in such a rapid timeframe would most likely not be viral or bacterial in nature, but rather the result of a physical or chemical process. Now, I won't even theorize about what kind of a chemical agent could be in use. But the important thing to realize is that, if these deaths are not being brought about by a pathogen, there is no reason to think that this is in any way contagious.

"And even if it were a disease, it would be a rather poor one, in terms of propagating itself. The most successful viruses either do not kill their host, or take a long time to do so. A virus that kills the host this quickly would barely have time to spread. To sum up: it's almost certainly not a disease, and even on the remote chance that it is, it would be an extremely easy one to contain. Now I don't mean to suggest there's nothing for people to worry about, but the important thing to realize is that there is no reason to panic."

Jill knew the professor was trying to be helpful, but she also knew that when you say "no reason to panic," all people tend to hear is the "panic" part. She could predict the next few hours and the next few days with some degree of confidence in her accuracy: enormous traffic jams and backed-up flights as people tried to leave D.C. with their entire families. They'd be lucky to avoid riots.

But the other thing that nagged at her was the description of the deaths: people liquefied inside their clothes, melting in seconds, leaving nothing solid but their bones. Nothing specifically about this description said "Umbrella," but in her experience, the professor could be very wrong about whether this was viral in nature. Expertly engineered viruses could act with unfathomable speed, though the nature of these viruses was known to a select few for security reasons.

What this chain of events did say to Jill was: "bio organic weapon." This was BSAA territory.

And here she was, totally inactive. And Chris had his rookies lost in the woods, out of contact until the morning.

Jill thought about calling Captain Pyke, and requesting activation as a BSAA Operative. But she didn't know if she was quite ready for that, and in any case this was just a hunch.

_Okay_, she thought. _Before this goes any further, I'll just head into D.C. ask around, find out what I can, get a feel for what's going on. Then I can tell Chris in the morning, and let him make the call on how best to proceed._

She nodded to herself. Sounded like a reasonable plan. She grabbed her bag and headed for that shower. There was one part of the plan she didn't care for; she knew one person in D.C., knew him pretty well, knew he was the person to talk to about this kind of thing, and was pretty sure she was the last person in the world he'd want to see.

_Oh well,_ she thought as she started to run the hot water. _He'll just have to grow up and deal with me._


	6. Chapter 5: Man Of Action

_Author's Note: If you have been following Ultra Somnium, this chapter used to be chapter 4, but I felt the flow worked better if I moved it to chapter 5 and changed a few details._

* * *

_Chapter 5: Man of Action_

* * *

WASHINGTON, D.C.

JUNE 11, 2009

1655 HOURS

* * *

Shane Waterbury had to act like he was on top of things, but the truth was, he was as close to abject terror as he ever came.

As he sat rigidly in the trailer that was serving as his temporary base of operations, he nodded like he understood what the scientist in front of him was talking about. He waited for the bespectacled man to finish before saying: "Bottom line it for me, professor."

Shane was always saying things like that. "Just give me the Cliff's Notes." "Let's hear the highlights." The kind of people Shane had to deal with all day long were the kind of people that had deep technical knowledge of their disciplines, and lots and lots to say. Shane had to find a way to take large information streams from various people, and quickly turn it all into a concise and easy-to-implement plan of action. Shane was the best in the world at this.

But this whole "people randomly melting" business was putting his leadership skills to a very decisive test.

Even if he didn't have the uncanny ability to cut through all the noise and arrive at the heart of the matter, Shane Waterbury would undoubtedly have gone far in life. He had a presence that commanded instant respect. Shane was a good six feet tall with deep black hair, chiseled features set into a tan face, large brow, wide mouth, the strong but graceful build of a quarterback, and his deep and resonant voice was a perfect complement to his rugged good looks. Shane could have been an actor, or a CEO, or a motivational speaker, but he was a man with one passion in life: finding challenges he didn't think he could overcome, and then decimating them.

This was how he had become the jewel in his employer's crown. And Purple Mountain made sure he knew how valuable he was. His compensation and benefits exceeded that of everyone in the company, except perhaps for the mysterious founder, Cooper Trask.

When Shane had completed his third tour of duty in the United States Marine Corps Special Operations Capable Forces, he had had many job offers awaiting him. Private military companies were hardly a blip on the radar of international conflict, but Shane had seen enough to know that it was a growth industry in a big way. And Purple Mountain had impressed him most of all, with weapons, gear and vehicles that the publicly funded armed forces could only dream of. Purple Mountain's advanced research division was especially impressive. Many defense contractors were chasing blue-sky ideas that looked sexy enough on paper to get government funding, but which any soldier with field experience would tell you were ludicrous. Purple Mountain's research was self-funded, though, and their only goal was to make things that could save soldier's lives. And the stuff was really, really cool.

So Shane had signed on with Purple Mountain. He hadn't spent long as a mercenary before being promoted to run entire units, then entire field operations, continuing his ascent until he'd reached his current position: Vice President of International Operations. An officer in the company with a significant ownership share. A seat at the table. The most respected voice in the corporation.

And honestly, he didn't aspire to anything more. Any further up the ladder would lead him toward a life that was more about meetings, and regulators, and paperwork. It actually would be easier work as COO or CEO, but International Operations meant his boots were on the ground. It meant he was there to fix things. It was the hardest job he could imagine, which meant he was exactly where he needed to be.

And then people in Washington D.C. started spontaneously melting, and he had the uneasy feeling that his job was about to get too hard, even for him.

The scientist squirmed in Shane's intimidating presence before answering: "The bottom line is, we don't know."

Shane pinched the bridge of his nose. "We don't know," he repeated.

"No, sir. These deaths could be directly linked to Ultra Somnium… or it could be completely unrelated. We just need more time to analyze the situation."

Shane tried to keep his temper in check. He hadn't slept in two days, but neither had the scientist. These men were the best in the world and completely committed to their job; it wasn't incompetence or laziness that obstructed them. It was just that the science that had gotten them into this mess was apparently so advanced that it didn't point to a way out.

When Shane was frustrated by his inability to narrow in on an answer, he liked to reorganize his thoughts, to step through the events that had led to the problem in the first place. And so he considered the events of the past few days.

Shane had known for a long time of the Purple Mountain project known as Ultra Somnium. But he hadn't known much. He knew the name, he knew that it was being conducted in a secure laboratory somewhere in Washington D.C., and he knew that the goal was to create a new stealth weapon system, but of what kind, he had no idea.

Mostly Shane stayed out of the advanced research department's business. He didn't care how he got the gear, he just cared about how to put it to the best use, to get the job done and bring Purple Mountain's mercs home alive. Besides, although his relations with all of Purple Mountain's execs were quite civil, he never really felt at ease around Vernon Veers, the Vice President of Advanced Research. Veers wasn't really an executive; he was a pure scientist. And quite likely mad, to boot. His genius was indisputable, but his... social skills left something to be desired. Sometimes you weren't quite sure if he was all there.

Now, though, the hands-off approach to R & D wasn't an option; there was a rather large problem with Ultra Somnium. Specifically, with the secure laboratory that was its home. Purple Mountain laboratories were beyond state of the art, with safety and security protocols designed to provide multiple, redundant barriers of protection if anything were to go wrong.

And something had gone very, very wrong.

One of the barriers, the most extreme barrier in fact, was total and automatic lockdown. In the case of a catastrophic event, each Purple Mountain laboratory was designed to be completely sealed off from the outside world – no one in and no one out. Not even water or air; the labs were designed to be self-contained biospheres for months on end if needed, until whatever problem had arisen could be sorted out.

And this is exactly what had happened in the Ultra Somnium lab, without any warning that anything was going wrong. What was worse, the labs were designed to have full two-way communication between the lab's occupants and the Purple Mountain operatives on the outside. But all they got from Ultra Somnium was dead silence. Not even static.

The lab was completely shut down. No one could get in or out. No one on the inside could tell them what was happening.

And then, just when Shane thought his D.C. trip couldn't get any worse, people started to melt.

So what exactly had been going on in the Ultra Somnium facility? This was Shane's big headache: no one seemed to have the full picture. It almost seemed to have been designed that way. As if Cooper Trask and Vernon Veers had set the project up so that no one but the two of them knew the full details.

What a convenient time for Trask to be ascending Everest – completely off the grid, as incommunicado as the poor souls in the Ultra Somnium lab that might now already be their tomb. And as for Veers... all Shane knew was that he was somewhere in D.C. and not trapped in the laboratory, but other than that, no one had the slightest idea where he'd gone or how to find him.

The fidgety scientist waited patiently as Shane ran through the facts in his head. All that he ended up with, unfortunately, was a list of things they could not do:

They couldn't try to breech the lab, not without knowing what had gone wrong and what danger they might be unleashing.

They couldn't figure out what was causing people to dissolve and spread into sidewalk stains.

And they couldn't ask either of the two men who might have some answers.

Shane Waterbury was the ultimate man of action, and the only answer he could come up with was to wait and see. If something else went wrong, that would mean another clue.

"Professor," said Shane, finally coming out of his contemplative trance, "you wouldn't happen to have any aspirin, would you?"


	7. Chapter 6: The Weird Part

_Author's Note: If you have been following Ultra Somnium, you should know that I moved the previous chapter 6 to chapter 7 and added this new chapter 6, as I felt the flow works better this way._

* * *

_Chapter 6: The Weird Part_

* * *

WASHINGTON, D.C.

JUNE 11, 2009

1711 HOURS

* * *

She walked back into his life with the same confident, purposeful, efficient stride she'd used to leave it.

Peter Girard was pretty sure he'd hoped to never see Jill Valentine again. Not entirely sure. But mostly certain. Whatever he'd hoped for, though, she was here, walking right towards him.

_Okay, Pete. Play it cool. Don't give her the satisfaction._

Peter watched Jill stride through the busy newsroom, with its sea of cublicles and clatter of keyboards. Her eyes met his and locked. Neither looked away. Peter, for his part, would not let her see the slightest sign of weakness. Not this time.

Her journey towards him seemed excruciatingly long, but finally she arrived and he realized he wasn't ready.

"Jill Valentine," he finally said, trying to muster an air of chilly disdain. "I'd heard you were back from the dead."

"Peter," she returned warmly. "It's good to see you."

It occurred to him that she probably meant it.

The thing between them hadn't lasted long, but it had been intense. They'd both been quite young, her a rising star in the Army, him a trouble-making cub reporter on the military beat of the Raccoon Sun-Journal. And then she was chosen for Delta Force. He knew it was a great honor for her, the culmination of her life's ambition, and yet he allowed himself to think she might turn it down to stay with him. Yeah, right. Stay on a dead-end military base, in a dead-end town, with a loser like Peter Girard. It seemed funny to Peter in retrospect. But at the time, it had shattered his heart into a fine powder.

Without Jill to give him a reason to live like there was a future to look forward to, he let his life spiral into ruin, into unemployment, alcohol, drugs. He almost died several times before getting his life on track. He tried to blame her, to hate her, but he was too smart to fool himself into thinking that way.

And so he continued his life's journey, ending up here in D.C. with a by-line. He managed to mostly forget about her – until he heard she'd died, and felt his heart break again.

But then the word had gotten out. Largely classified info supported by rumors, but the gist was that she was alive and had been rescued from some unimaginable horror.

And Peter decided it was best not to care anymore.

So why was his heart racing? Why were his palms so damp? It wasn't cool disdain that stopped him from shaking her hand, it was flopsweat.

And he realized that she had no idea what he'd gone through all these years. To her, it was undoubtedly ancient history, the memory long since consigned to scrapbooks and photo albums, an artifact with little remaining emotional power. _Must be nice._

"So what brings you to my neck of the woods?" he asked. _Did I just say 'neck of the woods'? I'm a professional writer, for God's sake! I can do better than that!_

"My partner is giving a seminar at Quantico," she answered, "and I'm just tagging along for the scenery."

"Well," he said in as even and steady a tone as he could manage, "I doubt you came up here for the view. Or for a walk down memory lane." _Memory lane? Jesus, she brings out the hack in me._

She just smiled. "No, I suppose not. I don't know if you know what I've been up to, but I was working with the BSAA for a while…"

The reporter in him decided to cast a line. "Yeah, I heard. We all thought you were dead. But I heard you were in Africa? Something about you being a prisoner, a test subject?"

The smile left her face, as did much of the color. "Something like that."

An awkward silence followed. She wasn't in a mood to discuss the topic, understandably._ Can't blame yours truly, Ace Reporter, for trying._

_Oh God,_ he thought. _I just called myself 'Ace Reporter.' I've got to get away from her before I lose whatever shred of talent I have left._

"Well, whatever it was you went through," he finally said, "I hope you're all right and I'm sure glad you're alive."

The smile came back as rapidly as it had left. He'd said exactly the right thing. "I'm doing all right, Peter. Getting better every day."

God, that smile. She was so devoted to business and duty that he'd hardly ever seen it, but whenever it appeared, it was like the sun peeking from behind the clouds. Fucking intoxicating.

Thankfully, she got right to the point of her visit. "Listen, Peter, I'm not currently active in the BSAA, so I don't really have any clearance or authorization to ask the authorities anything…"

All the pieces fell into place. He knew exactly why she was here. And, knowing her history and achievements, he was damn glad. Some terrifying things were happening in D.C., and if Jill got involved, she'd get to the bottom of things sooner or later.

"You want to know about the deaths. The melting deaths." He picked up a pile of papers off a chair for her to sit, which she did gladly.

"Lips are tight on this, Jill. Info is hard to come by."

She smiled that radiant smile again. "What's hard for some isn't always hard for you, though, Peter."

She remembered how tenacious he had been as a cub reporter in Raccoon City. Reckless was more like it. And he had to admit, his methods may have been tempered by age and experience, but he still had trouble dropping a lead. He smiled back.

"Jill, have you ever heard of a private military company called Purple Mountain?"

She nodded. "Cooper Trask, right? Eccentric billionaire."

"Right. Well, they have an advanced weapons research division. I can't verify the story yet, but I'm hearing about a very secret project called Ultra Somnium."

"Ultra Somnium," she said thoughtfully. He remembered she always did that when a key piece of info came up that she needed to remember.

"Targeted remote assassination. That's what it is, supposedly."

"What does that mean, targeted remote assassination?"

"Not entirely sure. The way I put it together, it basically means: what if you could kill someone from far away, at a time of your choosing, no matter where they are or how well protected?"

"That's a terrifying thought," she responded. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. This was Umbrella or Tricell territory.

Her eyes went wide as she put it together. "You think these deaths are actually murders? That Purple Mountain is testing its weapon system on random people?"

"I don't know, Jill. This is something people want buried deep. Hell, it could be a massive malfunction of the program – the system is out of control, killing people at random, something like that.

"Now here's the weird part," he said, quickly following with, "I mean extra weird. Have you heard of Vernon Veers?"

"Just what I remember from science class – he's a Nobel-prize-winning scientist, right?"

"Right. Well, for the past twenty years or so, he's headed up Purple Mountain's R and D efforts. So, apparently, Veers came to D.C. around two weeks ago – and promptly vanished."

"Jesus, Peter!" she said in an exclamatory whisper, a hand going involuntarily to her mouth.

"I know. Before, this shit was just scary. But you add a few details, and it has the potential to be a living goddamn nightmare. Veers made his mark in evolutionary theory before turning to weapons research. But do you know what he wrote his thesis on?"

Jill shook her head, knowing she was about to hear an answer she wouldn't like.

"Xenobiology."

Xenobiology. Unknown biology. Theoretical life forms. Like the Progenitor virus and all the myriad terrors it had spawned.

Jill sat back, processing all he had said. "Is that all you have?" she asked.

"For right now, yes. But I'm meeting a source later. I shouldn't tell you this, but that's not about to stop me. He's a coroner for the county morgue and I'm meeting him at 110 Police Plaza this evening. He's going to give me a look at the autopsy results for the melting deaths.

"Jill, I know you're not active BSAA – are you on good terms with them?"

She nodded. "If I tell them they need to get involved, they'll listen. But we don't know anything yet – they'll only intervene if it's a weapon that's biological in nature."

"Well, the melting part sure is biological in nature," he joked humorlessly, "and the Veers angle doesn't give me warm and fuzzies. Look, Jill, I'll be honest with you – this whole situation terrifies me. You wanna meet me at the morgue later, take a look at the results with me?"

She leaned forward again. "I'm no scientist – any chance I could get hard copies of anything?"

"No can do. That's why we gotta go in person. We can look at a computer monitor and do our best to remember what we see. This guy's scared too, and not just about the deaths, if you know what I mean."

She got that look in her eyes that he knew all too well – the look of determination to see something through. She was in. As hard as it was to see her, to be with her, he was glad. She just nodded.

"Good," he said. I'm meeting him there at 8. Here's my card," he said, fishing his business card out of a rolodex. "Call my cell when you're close and I'll tell you where we're meeting him – probably some maintenance entrance."

"I will, Peter. Listen, thanks. Thanks for this."

He shook his head. "You don't have to thank me. I should be thanking you."

They looked at each other for a moment, sharing a silence that was not awkward. It was nice. Peter suddenly realized that he might not be over her entirely, but that that day would come, and he was glad if it meant she could be in his life again. She made him feel safe. Always had.

"Okay," she said, standing. "I'll call you later."

He stood as well, not sure whether to shake her hand or hug her. Luckily, she decided for them, throwing her arms around him. He responded, for the moment feeling nothing for her but affection and gratitude.

Pulling back, he couldn't help but comment. "You're different now, Jill. Something about you."

She flashed him that enigmatic smile she had perfected. "You too, Peter. I'm not sure what it is, but it's definitely for the better."

He smiled. She stepped back, returning his smile, then turned on her heel, leaving with the same confident urgency with which she'd entered.

He plopped back into his seat, still smiling. Smiling from relief, relief over a great many things. _That went well. Somehow, that went well._

He thought for a moment about the hundreds of things he'd thought of to say to her if he ever saw her again. They were mostly pretty nasty. Mentally, he tossed that whole file into the trash, and man did it feel good.

Jill Valentine was back in his life, and the pain was at a manageable level. It was more than he would have dared to hope for.


	8. Chapter 7: That Word Again

_Author's Note: If you have been following Ultra Somnium, this chapter used to be chapter 6, but I thought the flow worked better if I moved it to chapter 7 and added a new chapter to the chapter 6 slot._

* * *

_Chapter 7: That Word Again_

* * *

WASHINGTON, D.C.

JUNE 11, 2009

1716 HOURS

* * *

Vernon Veers had not generated a coherent thought in many years, and his long-shattered mind was not about to start turning them out now.

To the world around him, he easily passed for a mad homeless man. His clothing was artfully tattered, his filth carefully accumulated, his stubbly beard a very precise tangle, his indistinct mutter and rancid smell creating a flawless barrier around him. He walked through crowds as though invisible, which was how his master wanted it.

There was that word again, "master." His mind told him again that there was no master and no Vernon, there was only one entity with one purpose: to make preparations for what was to come.

This is what his mind had told him for many years, even though some part of him knew the truth: that he was just a body, a vessel, being manipulated by some outer entity for its own purposes. But if such a thought were to approach the surface of conscious thought, it would be painfully repressed. As had happened countless times since Antarctica.

What was left of Vernon Veers bitterly regretted ever going to the Antarctic with Cooper Trask. And not merely for the five good friends of his that had gone with but not returned, the eternal ice now their grave. To be most precise, he regretted that he had not died with them. For what had been under the ice would inevitably have resurfaced, but perhaps not in their lifetimes, not for many generations, centuries, millennia – not if he and Trask hadn't brought it back.

There was barely enough of Vernon Veers the acclaimed scientist left to wonder how it was that he was chosen. He had watched two of his friends melt into red sludge before the master had gotten into him, and then he had watched his own hands kill the other three. He had heard some approximation of his voice explain to Trask what had happened: that the five dead explorers had fallen victim to an unstable ice shelf, with Veers left as the only survivor. And who would question the word of one of the world's great scientific minds? Certainly not Trask, not after hearing about and seeing what Veers had recovered from that ancient and untouched place. Such promise, such potential – a cutting-edge discovery that would put Purple Mountain at the forefront and center of the physical sciences. Or at least, that was how Veers had explained it as he carefully cradled the chalky blue crystal that he knew would bear fruit too horrendous to imagine.

But what came back from the Antarctic was not Vernon Veers, not really, not anymore.

And so, the old, decrepit homeless man shambled along the street. His work, his many years at Purple Mountain paving the way for the great cataclysm that was about to swallow humanity, was nearly at an end. All he had left to do was to watch for threats to the master.

No. Not the master. Himself. Itself.

There was no master. There was no Vernon Veers.

There was only The Dreamer.

* * *


End file.
